John Carmack, Tim Sweeney and Johan Andersson talk for over an hour, taking questions from the audience and even getting into debates amongst themselves in some instances. Topics included NVIDIA G-Sync of course, AMD's Mantle low-level API, the hurdles facing PC gaming and what direction each luminary is currently on for future development.

If you are a PC enthusiast or gamer you are definitely going to want to listen and watch the video below!

In all seriousness, we know basically nothing about this card. It is entirely possible that its architecture might not even be based on GK110. We do know it will be faster than a GeForce 780 but we have no frame of reference in regards to the GeForce Titan. The two cards were already so close in performance that Ryan struggled to validate the 780's existence. Imagine how difficult it would be for NVIDIA to wedge yet another product in that gap.

And if it does outperform the Titan, what is its purpose? Sure, Titan is a GPGPU powerhouse if you want double-precision performance without purchasing a Tesla or a Quadro, but that is not really relevant for gamers yet.

We shall see, soon, when we get review samples in. You, on the other hand, will likely see more when the card launches mid-November. No word on pricing.

Our Legacys Influence

We are often creatures of habit. Change is hard. And often times legacy systems that have been in place for a very long time can shift and determine the angle at which we attack new problems. This happens in the world of computer technology but also outside the walls of silicon and the results can be dangerous inefficiencies that threaten to limit our advancement in those areas. Often our need to adapt new technologies to existing infrastructure can be blamed for stagnant development.

Take the development of the phone as an example. The pulse based phone system and the rotary dial slowed the implementation of touch dial phones and forced manufacturers to include switches to select between pulse and tone based dialing options on phones for decades.

Perhaps a more substantial example is that of the railroad system that has based the track gauge (width between the rails) on the transportation methods that existed before the birth of Christ. Horse drawn carriages pulled by two horses had an axle gap of 4 feet 8 inches in the 1800s and thus the first railroads in the US were built with a track gauge of 4 feet 8 inches. Today, the standard rail track gauge remains 4 feet 8 inches despite the fact that a wider gauge would allow for more stability of larger cargo loads and allow for higher speed vehicles. But the cost of updating the existing infrastructure around the world would be so cost prohibitive that it is likely we will remain with that outdated standard.

What does this have to do with PC hardware and why am I giving you an abbreviated history lesson? There are clearly some examples of legacy infrastructure limiting our advancement in hardware development. Solid state drives are held back by the current SATA based storage interface though we are seeing movements to faster interconnects like PCI Express to alleviate this. Some compute tasks are limited by the “infrastructure” of standard x86 processor cores and the move to GPU compute has changed the direction of these workloads dramatically.

There is another area of technology that could be improved if we could just move past an existing way of doing things. Displays.

UPDATE 2: ASUS has announced the G-Sync enabled version of the VG248QE will be priced at $399.

During a gaming event being held in Montreal, NVIDIA unveield a new technology for GeForce gamers that the company is hoping will revolutionize the PC and displays. Called NVIDIA G-Sync, this new feature will combine changes to the graphics driver as well as change to the monitor to alter the way refresh rates and Vsync have worked for decades.

With standard LCD monitors gamers are forced to choose between a tear-free experience by enabling Vsync or playing a game with the substantial visual anomolies in order to get the best and most efficient frame rates. G-Sync changes that by allowing a monitor to display refresh rates other than 60 Hz, 120 Hz or 144 Hz, etc. without the horizontal tearing normally associated with turning off Vsync. Essentially, G-Sync allows a properly equiped monitor to run at a variable refresh rate which will improve the experience of gaming in interesting ways.

This technology will be available soon on Kepler-based GeForce graphics cards but will require a monitor with support for G-Sync; not just any display will work. The first launch monitor is a variation on the very popular 144 Hz ASUS VG248QE 1920x1080 display and as we saw with 3D Vision, supporting G-Sync will require licensing and hardware changes. In fact, NVIDIA claims that the new logic inside the panels controller is NVIDIA's own design - so you can obviously expect this to only function with NVIDIA GPUs.

DisplayPort is the only input option currently supported.

It turns out NVIDIA will actually be offering retrofitting kits for current users of the VG248QE at some yet to be disclosed cost. The first retail sales of G-Sync will ship as a monitor + retrofit kit as production was just a bit behind.

Using a monitor with a variable refresh rates allows the game to display 55 FPS on the panel at 55 Hz without any horizontal tearing. It can also display 133 FPS at 133 Hz without tearing. Anything below the 144 Hz maximum refresh rate of this monitor will be running at full speed without the tearing associated with the lack of vertical sync.

The technology that NVIDIA is showing here is impressive when seen in person; and that is really the only way to understand the difference. High speed cameras and captures will help but much like 3D Vision was, this is a feature that needs to be seen to be appreciated. How users will react to that road block will have to be seen.

Features like G-Sync show the gaming world that without the restrictions of console there is quite a bit of revolutionary steps that can be made to maintain the PC gaming advantage well into the future. 4K displays were a recent example and now NVIDIA G-Sync adds to the list.

A pair of new graphics cards have been announced during the first day of "The Way It's Meant To Be Played Montreal 2013" both of which intended for system builders to integrate into their products. Both cards fall under the GeForce GTX 760 branding with the names: "GeForce GTX 760 Ti (OEM)" and "GeForce GTX 760 192-bit (OEM)".

The GeForce 760 is no slouch and, especially the GTX 760 Ti, seems to be pretty close in performance to the retail product. I could see this being a respectible addition to a Steam Machine. I still cannot understand why, like the gaming bundle, these cards were not announced during the keynote speech.

The live stream from NVIDIA, this morning, was full of technologies focused around the PC gaming ecosystem including mobile (but still PC-like) platforms. Today they also announced a holiday gaming bundle for their GeForce cards although that missed the stream for some reason.

If you purchase a GeForce GTX 770, 780, or Titan from a participating retailer (including online), you will receive Splinter Cell: Black List, Batman: Arkham Origins, and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag along with a $100-off coupon for an NVIDIA SHIELD.

If, on the other hand, you purchase a GTX 760, 680, 670, 660 Ti, or 660 from a participating retailer (again, including online), you will receive Splinter Cell: Black List and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag along with a $50-off coupon for the NVIDIA SHIELD.

The current price at Newegg for an NVIDIA SHIELD is $299 USD. With a $100 discount, this pushes the price point to $199. The $200 price point is a barrier, for videogame systems, under which customers tend to jump at. Reaching the sub-$200 price point could be a big deal even for customers not on the fence especially when you consider PC streaming. Could be.

Assume you were already planning on upgrading your GPU. Would you be interested in adding in an NVIDIA SHIELD for an extra $199?

Last month it was AMD hosting the media out in sunny Hawaii for a #GPU14 press event. This week NVIDIA is hosting a group of media in Montreal for a two-day event built around "The Way It's Meant to be Played".

NVIDIA promises some very impressive software and technology demonstrations on hand and you can take it all in with our live blog and (hopefully) live stream on our PC Perspective Live! page!

It starts at 10am ET / 7am PT so join us bright and early!! And don't forget to stop by tomorrow for an even more exciting Day 2!!

This should be little-to-no surprise for the viewers of our podcast, as this story was discussed there, but Valve has confirmed AMD and Intel graphics are compatible with Steam Machines. Doug Lombardi of Valve commented by email to, apparently, multiple sources including Forbes and Maximum PC.

Last week, we posted some technical specs of our first wave of Steam Machine prototypes. Although the graphics hardware that we've selected for the first wave of prototypes is a variety of NVIDIA cards, that is not an indication that Steam Machines are NVIDIA-only. In 2014, there will be Steam Machines commercially available with graphics hardware made by AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel. Valve has worked closely together with all three of these companies on optimizing their hardware for SteamOS, and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future.

Ryan and the rest of the podcast crew found the whole situation, "Odd". They could not understand why AMD referred the press to Doug Lombardi rather than circulate a canned statement from him. It was also weird why NVIDIA had an exclusive on the beta program with AMD being commercially available in 2014.

As I have said in the initial post: for what seems to be deliberate non-committal to a specific hardware spec, why limit to a single graphics provider?

UPDATE: We picked our winner for week 1 but now you can enter for week 2!!! See the new podcast episode listed below!!

Back in August NVIDIA announced that they would be teaming up with Warner Bros. Interactive to include copies of the upcoming Batman: Arkham Origins game with select NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards. While that's great and all, wouldn't you rather get one for free next week from PC Perspective?

Great, you're in luck! We have a handful of keys to give out to listeners and viewers of the PC Perspective Podcast. Here's how you enter:

I'll draw a winner before the next podcast and announce it on the show! We'll giveaway one copy each of the next two weeks! Our thanks goes to NVIDIA for supplying the Batman: Arkham Origins keys for this contest!!

DigiTimes has broken the news that NVIDIA will be cutting prices on many of their cards in reaction to AMD's new GPU family. Currently the lowest priced GTX660 is $150 after MIR and a GTX650Ti Boost can be had for $110. We don't have any information as to how they will be updating the GTX 760, likely faster clocks but we can hope for something a little more adventurous. The GTX 760 can be had for $250 right now but you should hold off to see what the new model has and what it does to the price of the current model.

"Nvidia has offered price cuts for several of its graphics cards including the GTX 660 and GTX 650Ti Boost and will soon release an upgraded GTX 760, targeting AMD's Radeon R9 280X, according to sources from graphics card makers."